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Left Turn Canada – Election 2008:
The Canadian and the US Elections – The Energy Connection
CPS Election Analysis 2008 - Week 1
August 31, 2008
The defeat of Prime Minister Harper has international consequences. There is collusion among the neo-con extreme right in North America. The US Republicans and their faith based right wing cheer lead and assist Canadian neo-Conservatives. A Harper victory would give a boost to John McCain’s religion-obsessed hyper patriotism masquerading as a program.
Republican vice-presidential candidate, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin’s faith-based, pro-gun, anti-abortion neo-con credentials are marketed as “working class”, similar to Harper’s “hard working Canadians” twaddle. They are nothing of the sort.
On Palin’s watch the Alaskan Senate recently approved Trans-Canada Pipe Lines as the preferred group to construct a pipe line to transport Alaskan natural gas through Canada to the USA. The venture will be certain to include handsome Canadian government subsidies, a possible toll highway and neglect of the interests of indigenous populations. Prime Minister Harper on his recent trip to the Arctic met with the Trans-Canada officials to iron out problems. As Dick Cheney fades to the wings Palin is queued by big oil for the energy spotlight.
Barack Obama in his acceptance speech said he would end US dependency on Mid-East Oil. Where is the alternative source? If all of the alternative energy resources he spoke of could be made to miraculously appear the day after his election Mr. Obama would confront the reality that Canada is still viewed as a long term major supplier of oil and gas to the US market.
Only the left will elevate the energy issue to where it belongs in the upcoming federal election, the key to Canada’s economic future. The left needs to get out of the environmental sandbox where it is playing silly games with Dion, Layton, May, and Harper over who has the best “green plan” to make the people pay for big oil’s environmental crimes.
The people of BC are rejecting Campbell’s Carbon Tax Scam and they will also reject other such pap regardless of who is marketing it, NDP, Liberal or Green.
A meaningful plan to reduce green house gases cannot be implemented so long as the polluters own the resource. |